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In The Round with Lance Cowan, Pat Alger & Buddy Mondlock
with Lance Cowan, Pat Alger, Buddy Mondlock
CST (Doors: )
$20 / $12 food/bev minimum Buy Tickets

THIS IS A PREPAID SHOW, REFUNDS ARE NOT AVAILABLE.

There are 18 tables, 8 bar seats and 8 church pew seats available for reservation. The remaining pew seats for this show are not reserved in advance. These seats are available on a first come/first served basis when doors open. 

Ticket reservations at The Bluebird Cafe are an agreement to pay the non-refundable cover charge and applicable taxes/fees and to meet the $12.00 per seat food and/or drink minimum.

Note: When making reservations, choose the table you would like and then add the number of seats you need to your cart by using the + button. You are NOT reserving an entire table if you choose 1 (by choosing 1, you are reserving 1 seat). We reserve ALL seats at each table. If you are a smaller party at a larger table, you will be seated with guests outside your party.



Artists

Lance Cowan

In a recent review of his new album, So Far, So GoodAmerican Songwriter Magazine observed Lance Cowan “is a remarkably talented singer/songwriter who’s every bit as capable and credible as the artists he represents. He is a master of melody, and the proof lies in the inviting and infectious attitude and approach that pervade this album overall.”  Country Music People (UK) gave the album “5 Stars!,” adding “It stinks of quality. Cowan’s voice is pitch perfect and the songs are terrific.”  Michael Jaworek of famed The Birchmere called it “A brilliant, wonderful album,” and noted writer Steve Simels wrote in PowerPop that So Far, So Good is “My current nominee - however early - for Album of the Year. Not to mince words, but I’ve really really needed to hear something as honest, lovely, well-crafted and touching as SFSG for far too long.” The album topped several year end, "best of" lists, including The Village Voice Jop and Pazz Critics’ Poll, and The Absolute Sound named it among its "Top Ten Best Roots Albums of 2024."

For the past 30 years, Cowan has worked behind the scenes with some of the country’s finest songwriters, including Joe Ely, Jimmie Dale Gilmore, Butch Hancock, Michael Martin Murphey and many more. Along the way, he has quietly honed his own songwriting skills, learning from those artists and influences Jackson Browne, Mark Heard and John Prine to name a few. 

His works have been performed and / or recorded by such respected artists as Joan Baez, Janis Ian, David Mallett, and several independent artists.

Among the musicians working with Cowan on So Far, So Good are Dan Dugmore (Linda Ronstadt, James Taylor), Sam Bush, Pat Flynn (New Grass Revival), Dave Pomeroy (Don Williams), Andrea Zonn (James Taylor), Keith Sewell (The Chicks), Johnny Neel, Robert Reynolds (The Mavericks), among others.  

His sophomore album, Against the Grain, is set for national release on March 21, 2025.

Pat Alger

Pat Alger was born in New York, but raised in the small town of LaGrange, Georgia. As a teenager, he taught himself to play guitar and began writing songs at age 15. He studied architecture and graphic design at Georgia Tech in Atlanta while touring the Southeast college-club circuit, sharing stages with singer-songwriters such as Jerry Jeff Walker, Steve Goodman and Jonathan Edwards.

He moved to Woodstock, New York in 1973 and made three folk albums with the Woodstock Mountains Revue for Rounder Records. This loose-knit group also included, at one time or another, John Sebastian, Paul Butterfield and Eric Andersen. Alger also recorded a 1980 duet album with guitarist/singer Artie Traum, also for Rounder, and the two toured together internationally.

He next spent time in Boston and Manhattan trying to break into the songwriting mainstream. Alger's first success as a songwriter was "First Time Love." Recorded by Livingston Taylor, it became a Top 40 pop hit in 1980.

Alger moved to Nashville in 1981. The Everly Brothers chose him as their opening act in 1984, and he toured with the duo for four years thereafter. His songs have been recorded by Mickey Gilley, Brenda Lee, Dolly Parton, George Hamilton IV, Crystal Gayle, Patti Page and Peter, Paul & Mary, among many others. He has written Top 10 country hits for Kathy Mattea, Garth Brooks, Hal Ketchum, Don Williams and Trisha Yearwood.

His solo albums include True Love and Other Short Stories (Sugar Hill, 1991), Seeds (Sugar Hill, 1991) and Notes and Grace Notes (Liberty, 1994). Pat Alger was named Songwriter of the Year by the Nashville Songwriters Association in 1991 and ASCAP's Country Songwriter of the Year in 1992. From 1995 to 1997, he was president of the Nashville Songwriters Association International board and most recently named 2013 Inductee Georgia Music Hall of Fame.

Buddy Mondlock

Buddy Mondlock writes songs. He does it so well that some great songwriters have recorded his songs on their own albums. Guy Clark, Nanci Griffith, and Janis Ian, to name just a few. You might’ve heard his song “The Kid” (recorded by David Wilcox, Peter, Paul and Mary and Cry, Cry, Cry) and maybe even sung it yourself around a campfire. He draws you into his world - where a single snowflake follows the trajectory of a relationship, where you get you pocket picked by a Roman cat, where you might swim over the edge of the world if you’re not careful and where dreams that don’t come true still count.

When Buddy’s not on the road you can find him in Nashville but he grew up in Park Forest, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago. He didn’t have a troubled childhood. His parents were nice to him. They paid for guitar lessons when he was ten and they never said, “when are you going to get a real job?” He sang Crosby, Stills and Nash songs with his sisters and answered his little brother’s questions from the top bunk. A few years away at college puzzling over Homer and Plato and then he was back. Living in the big city this time and playing open mics at Chicago’s crucible for songwriters in those days, the famed Earl of Old town. He once opened for the amazing Steve Goodman there on New Year’s Eve. Buddy was 21. Says he could have walked out of there that night and gotten hit by a bus and he wouldn’t have felt like life cheated him at all.

When Buddy made his first trip to Texas from his native Chicago, Guy Clark heard him singing one of his songs under a tree at the Kerrville Folk Festival and liked it. So Guy went back to Nashville, opened the door and said, “listen to this kid, he’s good!” A publishing deal and a U-Haul headed south soon followed.

People were starting to pay attention. In 1987 he was a New Folk Award Winner at Kerrville and he released his first album called “On the Line”. Over the next few years David Wilcox recorded “The Kid” on his first record for A&M. Buddy did some writing with this other new kid in town named Garth Brooks. Janis Ian heard him singing at the Bluebird Cafe and asked him if he’d like to write with her. Their song “Amsterdam” got recorded by Joan Baez. Nanci Griffith asked Buddy to sing on a show she was taping for Irish television. She ended up liking that song so much that she recorded “Comin’ Down In the Rain” on her Grammy Award winning collection “Other Voices, Other Rooms.” Garth became a star and “Every Now and Then” ended up on his album “The Chase.”

Buddy was touring all over the U.S. by this time playing coffeehouses and the occasional festival (he’d become a regular on the main stage at Kerrville). And there were trips to Europe too. Buddy’s second album, produced by Steve Addabbo in 1994, got picked up by Son Records, a small label in Ireland started by the band U2, and he was well received on the island of poets. He’s toured there consistently ever since. 1996 was a good year. Peter, Paul and Mary recorded “The Kid” and then asked the kid himself to sing with them on their “Great Performances” TV special. He won a Kerrville Music Award for Song of the Year that autumn for “The Kid” too.

Since then he’s released a string of critically acclaimed solo recordings on his own label and on EMI. And in 2003 Buddy toured North America and Europe with Art Garfunkel and Maia Sharp in support of their album “Everything Waits To Be Noticed” which they wrote and recorded together as a trio. His latest solo album, “The Memory Wall,” was nominated for an Independent Music Award.

Currently Buddy and Maia Sharp are collaborating on a new musical called, “The Girl In the Red Dress.” It includes several songs from their project with Art Garfunkel and a slew of new material from Buddy and Maia. Set in a world where “The Leader” has banished all color as subversive, the story focuses on a young woman who must learn to believe in herself and comes to find that she can actually make a difference.

In addition to writing and touring Buddy also teaches songwriting. Along with one day workshops across the US and Europe he has also been a staff instructor at the Swannanoa Gathering at Warren Wilson College, the Kerrville Folk Festival Song School,  the Sisters Folk Festival Song Camp, and Cedarsong Retreats.